1,069 research outputs found
The influence of quintessence on the motion of a binary system in cosmology
We employ the metric of Schwarzschild space surrounded by quintessential
matter to study the trajectories of test masses on the motion of a binary
system. The results, which are obtained through the gradually approximate
approach, can be used to search for dark energy via the difference of the
azimuth angle of the pericenter. The classification of the motion is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
Leading-Order Actions of Goldstino Fields
This paper starts with a self-contained discussion of the so-called
Akulov-Volkov action S_AV, which is traditionally taken to be the leading-order
action of Goldstino field. Explicit expressions for S_AV and its chiral version
S_AV^ch are presented. We then turn to the issue on how these actions are
related to the leading-order action S_NL proposed in the newly proposed
constrained superfield formalism. We show that S_NL may yield S_AV/S_AV^ch or a
totally different action S_KS, depending on how the auxiliary field in the
former is integrated out. However, S_KS and S_AV/S_AV^ch always yield the same
S-matrix elements, as one would have expected from general considerations in
quantum field theory.Comment: Minor changes, version to appear in European Physical Journal
Do we know the mass of a black hole? Mass of some cosmological black hole models
Using a cosmological black hole model proposed recently, we have calculated
the quasi-local mass of a collapsing structure within a cosmological setting
due to different definitions put forward in the last decades to see how similar
or different they are. It has been shown that the mass within the horizon
follows the familiar Brown-York behavior. It increases, however, outside the
horizon again after a short decrease, in contrast to the Schwarzschild case.
Further away, near the void, outside the collapsed region, and where the
density reaches the background minimum, all the mass definitions roughly
coincide. They differ, however, substantially far from it. Generically, we are
faced with three different Brown-York mass maxima: near the horizon, around the
void between the overdensity region and the background, and another at
cosmological distances corresponding to the cosmological horizon. While the
latter two maxima are always present, the horizon mass maxima is absent before
the onset of the central singularity.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, revised version, accepted in General Relativity
and Gravitatio
Massless BTZ black holes in minisuperspace
We study aspects of the propagation of strings on BTZ black holes. After
performing a careful analysis of the global spacetime structure of generic BTZ
black holes, and its relation to the geometry of the SL(2,R) group manifold, we
focus on the simplest case of the massless BTZ black hole. We study the SL(2,R)
Wess-Zumino-Witten model in the worldsheet minisuperspace limit, taking into
account special features associated to the Lorentzian signature of spacetime.
We analyse the two- and three-point functions in the pointparticle limit. To
lay bare the underlying group structure of the correlation functions, we derive
new results on Clebsch-Gordan coefficients for SL(2,R) in a parabolic basis. We
comment on the application of our results to string theory in singular
time-dependent orbifolds, and to a Lorentzian version of the AdS/CFT
correspondence.Comment: 28 pages, v2: reference adde
Bosonization of non-relativstic fermions in 2-dimensions and collective field theory
We revisit bosonization of non-relativistic fermions in one space dimension.
Our motivation is the recent work on bubbling half-BPS geometries by Lin, Lunin
and Maldacena (hep-th/0409174). After reviewing earlier work on exact
bosonization in terms of a noncommutative theory, we derive an action for the
collective field which lives on the droplet boundaries in the classical limit.
Our action is manifestly invariant under time-dependent reparametrizations of
the boundary. We show that, in an appropriate gauge, the classical collective
field equations imply that each point on the boundary satisfies Hamilton's
equations for a classical particle in the appropriate potential. For the
harmonic oscillator potential, a straightforward quantization of this action
can be carried out exactly for any boundary profile. For a finite number of
fermions, the quantum collective field theory does not reproduce the results of
the exact noncommutative bosonization, while the latter are in complete
agreement with the results computed directly in the fermi theory.Comment: references added and typos corrected; 21 pages, 3 figures, eps
Evaluating the AdS dual of the critical O(N) vector model
We argue that the AdS dual of the three dimensional critical O(N) vector
model can be evaluated using the Legendre transform that relates the generating
functionals of the free UV and the interacting IR fixed points of the boundary
theory. As an example, we use our proposal to evaluate the minimal bulk action
of the scalar field that it is dual to the spin-zero ``current'' of the O(N)
vector model. We find that the cubic bulk self interaction coupling vanishes.
We briefly discuss the implications of our results for higher spin theories and
comment on the bulk-boundary duality for subleading N.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, v2 references added, JHEP versio
Stretched Horizon and Entropy of Superstars
Amongst the class of supergravity solutions found by Lin, Lunin and
Maldacena, we consider pure and mixed state configurations generated by phase
space densities in the dual fermionic picture. A one-to-one map is constructed
between the phase space densities and piecewise monotonic curves, which
generalize the Young diagrams corresponding to pure states. Within the
fermionic phase space picture, a microscopic formula for the entropy of mixed
states is proposed. Considering thermal ensembles, agreement is found between
the thermodynamic and the proposed microscopic entropies. Furthermore, we study
fluctuations in thermodynamic ensembles for the superstar and compare the
entropy of these ensembles with the area of stretched horizons predicted by the
mean fluctuation size.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, 2 references adde
The function of CozE proteins is linked to lipoteichoic acid biosynthesis in Staphylococcus aureus.
Coordinated membrane and cell wall synthesis is vital for maintaining cell integrity and facilitating cell division in bacteria. However, the molecular mechanisms that underpin such coordination are poorly understood. Here we uncover the pivotal roles of the staphylococcal proteins CozEa and CozEb, members of a conserved family of membrane proteins previously implicated in bacterial cell division, in the biosynthesis of lipoteichoic acids (LTA) and maintenance of membrane homeostasis in Staphylococcus aureus. We establish that there is a synthetic lethal relationship between CozE and UgtP, the enzyme synthesizing the LTA glycolipid anchor Glc <sub>2</sub> DAG. By contrast, in cells lacking LtaA, the flippase of Glc <sub>2</sub> DAG, the essentiality of CozE proteins was alleviated, suggesting that the function of CozE proteins is linked to the synthesis and flipping of the glycolipid anchor. CozE proteins were indeed found to modulate the flipping activity of LtaA in vitro. Furthermore, CozEb was shown to control LTA polymer length and stability. Together, these findings establish CozE proteins as novel players in membrane homeostasis and LTA biosynthesis in S. aureus.IMPORTANCELipoteichoic acids are major constituents of the cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria. These anionic polymers are important virulence factors and modulators of antibiotic susceptibility in the important pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. They are also critical for maintaining cell integrity and facilitating proper cell division. In this work, we discover that a family of membrane proteins named CozE is involved in the biosynthesis of lipoteichoic acids (LTAs) in S. aureus. CozE proteins have previously been shown to affect bacterial cell division, but we here show that these proteins affect LTA length and stability, as well as the flipping of glycolipids between membrane leaflets. This new mechanism of LTA control may thus have implications for the virulence and antibiotic susceptibility of S. aureus
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